


Paris

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Boss/Employee Relationship, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Heartbreak, Love Triangles, Paris (City), Post-Break Up, Regret, Romance, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27027394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: MC starts a new life in Paris but will Ethan let her go?
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart), Main Character (Open Heart)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Paris

Louis is a precious joy.

He is funny and smart and artistic and runs a gallery in the 9th arrondissement.

The way they met, the moment he bumped into her as she rushed to the hospital for her morning shift, knocking over her stack of files and journals, it was like a scene in a romantic film.

Not a rom-com, there’s nothing funny about Louis at all, he’s too intense and passionate to be some bumbling floppy haired hero, but one of those old black and white films her grandma and mom cry over at Thanksgiving.

She wants real old school love. The kind that lingers in your blood.

The Jardin des Tulleries are beautiful this time of year.

Utterly dazzling.

Springtime in Paris is charming, the avenue small, the roads wide, the breeze gentle and the Vespas zooming past everything she ever dreamt of.

And the Tulleries are the icing on the cake, the beautiful gravel crunching under her heels as she walks through the rich greenery past fountain after fountain. She’s lucky to be here with Louis.

She’s not thinking of Boston at all.

It’s been a month since she arrived in Paris and she’s finally finding her feet.

No thought of blue eyes, late nights, longing, shouting in the rain, slammed doors, stolen kisses and the sheer self-destruction that led her here.

Maybe if they didn’t wait so long they would have had a chance. Maybe if they didn’t keep things secret, didn’t push each other away, maybe then it wouldn’t have eaten them alive.

Pushing her way in to the spaces he squeezed her out of stopped being a challenge and started to be a lifestyle.

She’s thought of the what ifs so many times, it rips through her and leaves her vacant.

This is a new start. A fellowship in one of Europe’s largest hospitals, a fellowship at the Sorbonne.

He didn’t even fight it. Never asked her not to leave.

Her mind tilts to that moment when she saw the message in her email, lying across the bench on his balcony, soft snowflakes dusting her hair, waiting for him to come home. Paris called to her.

She wanted him to fight her answer.

But her career will always come first to him.

Sometimes she wonders if he ever saw her as a woman and not just a doctor. Maybe that’s why it didn’t work.

It’s irrational but he was so closed down, so hard to read that it makes some sense when nothing else does.

How did they ever come to this.

She looks at Louis’s smile, the way his mouth crinkles in the corners and turns up in another when he speaks and she tries to listen back to what he’s saying. He’s holding a rose she’s sure is for her but he hasn’t handed it over yet. He picks his moment. He thinks too much. All qualities she admires.

They walk past a grove of trees and light seeps through, painting the leaves the freshest green. The Louvre glitters up ahead. She’d like to visit soon, see the world’s most beautiful paintings but she wants to time it right.

She doesn’t want to miss anything this time. But she doesn’t want to hurry.

Her heart is healing.

She was never a crier, but the sadness of being away from everything she ever loved is too great for tears. When she arrived she just felt numb. Now, when she bites into a pastry from the boulangerie below her apartment, and it’s 6am and the buttered dough is still hot, there are mornings she doesn’t miss the only other person she dreams of waking up with.

And even now as she’s starting to recover and the instinct to rush back on a plane and apologize for all the things she’s never done starts to burn out, she still knows one singular truth.

She’d break her heart again, a thousand times, for _him_.

Louis is talking about Flaubert and although she’s never read him she tries to look interested. Everything Louis says is illuminated by his sheer enthusiasm, it’s hard not to get swept up in him.

Hard but not impossible.

She gazes over at the fountain, the soft streams of silky water so elegant that she wonders if there’s anything ungraceful in this whole city. Nothing brash as the heat of the Boston traffic, nothing exhausting as long walks around the corridors of Edenbrook. Feet feel light on pavements this delicate.

Everything in Paris is beauty and art.

And it’s her home now.

She’s so lucky.

She turns and looks behind her, and for a second something flashes, the glimpse of a figure, the whole thought so outlandish that she looks away immediately.

She’d too old to keep imagining him in places.

She tells herself to calm down, a couple of curse words crossing her mind and Louis is laughing now so she smiles and laughs with him ignoring the heat on her back and the absolute desperation to turn around again.

You can always spot an American in Paris, Naveen said to her in their video chat that morning.  
  
She thought he meant her but what if…

No.  
  
She won’t chase ghosts in gardens. The history of this place weighs down heavy on her and there’s the smallest comfort in knowing that she isn’t the only person to set foot here whose heart had once felt pain.

Centuries of French aristocrats stumbled over these paths, their heart in their hands, hoping for love, for romance, for magic.

The thought reassures her and swallowing hard she leans into Louis to listen to his beautiful accent.

She glances over her shoulder.

Her heart flits.

The smallest missed beat.

And then another.

The heat moves upwards.

Her chest constricts, throat tightens. Her mouth is dry and she can’t hear anything.

_You can always spot an American in Paris._

Nothing makes sense.

Even if that is him, how does he know she is here?

She bites her lip as she remembers telling Naveen:

_I have a date at noon at the Tulleries. Paris is like something out of a film._

This is a different movie, the one that’s playing out now.

She will recognise him anywhere.

He’s far too tall to hide, his black suit so handsome and formal, he stands out, captivating.

He’s still far away, so many steps behind that she’s not sure he’s seen her. But he walks with intent. He knows she’s there, they both know he can sense her.

This is a split second decision.

The kind that changes lives.

A chance to be brave.

How do they know what to do in the movies, how does the woman decide?

The surroundings blur and she has her answer.

Her feet move in spite of her, like muscle memory, so used to chasing him down. She treads fast on the gravel, is she running, she doesn’t think it’s even a jog yet, but her pace mirrors his and suddenly Louis is far behind.

 _He_ turns an few inches to the left.

Their eyes lock.

The current between them could light up France.

Each on the opposite side of the road, the lights change and the angry Parisian traffic lurches at them from both sides and they’re separated by this stretch of tarmac and French cars, families, ordinary lives.

The logical question is why is he here. Why now? But instead she wonders where they’ll meet when the lights change again. The middle of the road doesn’t feel safe.

She can’t wait much longer, looks into the storm of traffic, bites her lips and mulls over heading in.

When the cars stop, she runs, fully runs, her heels even skipping over a grate.

He hasn’t moved. He stares at her, alert, on edge and the last moment before she reaches him, those seconds feel like miles.

He stands still as she approaches.

His scent engulfs her, still sea salt and cedarwood, rich and intense and so familiar she can’t believe she even let herself miss it.

It’s been 32 days since she saw him last.

They stand face to face, the May glow lighting up his face but his features utterly expressionless.

But his eyes carry a storm of everything she felt every moment they were apart and he’s looking at her as though she might disappear. They’re so close she catches herself in his irises, across his pupils, the small reflection the best she’s ever looked.

She knows why he’s here.

He takes her hand softly, the mere movement jolting her alive, warmth searing her skin, but their gaze doesn’t crack.

He tugs it towards him. Turns back round, hand still in her hands and pulls her along with him softly, so gently that she shivers at the touch. Her feet find his step and she tightens her fingers around his palm, offering the softest squeeze, the tiniest promise he reciprocates.

They walk together through the jardin.

She wonders who will be the first to speak. What they’ll say. What comes next.

But for now she worships the silence.

The sun sets the ground alight with its golden sheen.

She glances at him, and feels it in every single one of their steps. 

It’s time to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> This is a bit different to my normal fics so is just for AO3.
> 
> My usual writing is at: @starrystarrytrouble on Tumblr.
> 
> \- Ruby


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